Google, Microsoft take to the skies over Sydney

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The Australian skies will host a symbolic dogfight between two of
the world's biggest technology companies, Microsoft and Google, on
Friday.

The tech giants have separately announced they have hired planes
to fly over certain parts of Sydney on Australia Day, photographing
what lies beneath.

The Microsoft-sponsored campaign, orchestrated by the National
Australia Day Council (NADC), is dubbed "Look Up and Smile". It
hopes to gather hundreds of Sydneysiders at Centennial Park to
create a huge map of Australia.

"The multicoloured map will represent the diversity of our walks
of life, religions and backgrounds," reads the website created to
promote the day.

Would-be attendees are advised to arrive at the park at 10am
dressed in white, and there is a $2000 prize for the best
dressed.

At Kirra Beach in Queensland, Microsoft will honour Australian
lifesavers by herding 600 people together to form a giant image of
a red and yellow lifesaver's cap.

An Aboriginal painting will be recreated in an outback paddock
at New Norcia in Western Australia, but the public will not play a
part in creating it.

"By combining photos taken from the sky and on the ground, we
will be creating a pictorial record of our nation celebrating what
is great about Australia and being Australian, which everyone will
be able to share, view and access," said Warren Pearson, national
director of the NADC.

The photographs will be between 100 metres by 90 metres and 150
metres by 50 metres, but Microsoft said those within a 1.5
kilometre radius of the event locations would also appear in the
shots.

It encouraged anyone to create their own "aerial image", which
could be a company logo, phrase or shape.

The images will be made available for download from the Look Up
and Smile website from January 30.

Google's
plane flyover on the other hand is aimed at drawing more
attention to its Google Maps service, by updating it with new,
higher resolution images of parts of Sydney.

The planes will fly over Centennial and Moore parks at 9am, from
where they will head out to Bronte Beach before making their way to
the inner east, city, harbour, and lower North Shore.

The flight will end at about 2:15pm.

The quality of the images will be good enough to make out
individual people on the street, and like Microsoft, Google is
encouraging people to get creative and make themselves visible.

Google Maps snapshots have amused countless armchair observers
since its inception - one of the more famous discoveries was the
topless sunbather caught on the balcony of her apartment in the
Netherlands.

Google's advanced warning of its Australia Day flyover will no
doubt lead to more memorable snaps, which will appear on the Google
Maps service within six weeks.

The NADC is also promoting smaller-scale events at other
locations around Australia, to be photographed from the air by
helicopters.

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1169330874136-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/google-microsoft-take-to-the-skies-over-sydney/2007/01/23/1169330874136.htmlsmh.com.auSydney Morning Herald2007-01-23Google, Microsoft take to the skies over SydneyAsher MosesTechnologyhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/web/google-wants-to-put-you-on-the-map/2007/01/22/1169330820917.htmlGoogle wants to put you on the maptext/html-document